In the cutting of masonry products, such as concrete masonry units (“CMU”) at a job site, much dust is released into the air as a result of the cutting process. Saws create dust at various points on the saw blade, releasing the dust into the environment as well as into the face of the worker. To minimize the release of the extreme amounts of dust into the air, various methods have been introduced over the years. Wet cutting is one of the methods. This allows water to be used at the cut to keep the dust from dispersing. The method works well, but has drawbacks in situations where the waste water from the wet cutting is a polluting factor. Another disadvantage of wet cutting occurs on the exposed or finished product side of a CMU. After wet cutting, the CMU needs to be cleaned of the slurry created by the mixture of dust and water during the wet cutting process. This requires more labor and more water for the cleaning process, which in turn wastes man-hours and dollars, as well as creating more waste water run off.
While masonry saws and the movable tables used with them have been around for some time, the art has not taken the next logical step, which is to protect the worker and the environment from the dust created from this type of work. Currently on job sites, State and Federal requirements are getting ever stricter regarding the release of water waste, in the case of wet cutting, or dust, in the case of dry cutting. Some attempts have been made to solve this problem, with limited results.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,273,081 to Gorgol employs a vacuum system for dust collection during dry saw operation. This apparatus is limited in its scope of use to tile, pavers, bricks and other small masonry units. The sawdust removal system is also limited in that the area of dust collection is inadequate. Outside the field of masonry, U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,072 to Terpstra, et al. discloses a sawdust collection apparatus for a table saw in a wood shop environment. This system places the dust collection at the back of the blade. The drawback of that in the masonry field is that much dust would still be released into the surrounding work area if employed in the cutting of large masonry units.